Americans without Law

“Enthralling.”
—Peter Fitzpatrick, Birkbeck School of Law, University of London

“A rare and radical insight.”
—Peter Goodrich, Cardozo School of Law

“Ambitious, provocative.”
—American Historical Review

“This bright and well-informed book deserves a wide readership.”
—Peter Charles Hoffer, University of Georgia, writing in Law and History Review

“Rich and exceptionally clear.”
—Christine Harrington, Institute for Law and Society, New York University

“A conceptually creative piece of scholarship, forged from a sophisticated interdisciplinary viewpoint.”
—The Law and Politics Book Review

“Weiner shows how the emergence of modern social science as an instrument for legitimating ethno-racial distinctions and hierarchies converged with ethno-racial myths of American national identity in simultaneously propelling economic modernization, the domestication and disciplining of a productive work force, and the growth of a modern state faced with the daunting task of reconciling discrimination and legal equality.”
—American Journal of Legal History

“In the end, Weiner’s book simultaneously lends credence to and draws its relevance from Gunnar Myrdal’s belief that the American “social world was jurisprudential at its core.” … The reader, like Myrdal, will come to find the relationship between social science and law to be a meaningful one, through their long, continuous shared history and the legal translation of these anthropological ideas into significant actions.”
—A reviewer on Amazon.com